Fallout 4 DLC revealed

"Settlements are completely optional."
Yet they insist on the main story and now the DLC's to make settlements. So basically only 1 out of the three currently announced DLC's actually appeal to more than one type of Fallout player. Great.
 
Knight In Leather Armor said:
"Settlements are completely optional."
Yet they insist on the main story and now the DLC's to make settlements. So basically only 1 out of the three currently announced DLC's actually appeal to more than one type of Fallout player. Great.
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The official word on DLCs from every game publisher ever is if you don't like it, you don't buy it :roll:. I suppose that Bethesda is going by the same logic, flawed as it is. I guess the whole debacle is good at giving us perspective on what the publisher - or even the developer themselves - intend to do. Meanwhile, CD Projekt RED gives The Witcher 3 essentially an entirely new campaign for 10 US dollars, with no drop in gameplay design or quality of writing. Different aims, clearly.
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
The official word on DLCs from every game publisher ever is if you don't like it, you don't buy it :roll:. I suppose that Bethesda is going by the same logic, flawed as it is. I guess the whole debacle is good at giving us perspective on what the publisher - or even the developer themselves - intend to do. Meanwhile, CD Projekt RED gives The Witcher 3 essentially an entirely new campaign for 10 US dollars, with no drop in gameplay design or quality of writing. Different aims, clearly.
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This is CD Projekt Red's company philosophy on their wikipedia:
They decided to focus on a few aspects and assess the value of other features. This approach, they hope, helps to maintain the quality of their games. The company focused on the development of role-playing games, with the team working on established franchises with a fan base and introducing lesser-known franchises to a wide audience. When the team develops an open-world game, they prioritise quest design over the size of its world in the belief that having choices to make encourages players to immerse themselves in the game.

The team makes the players their priority; according to Iwiński, support from players "drives" the company (which considers themselves "rebels"). The team focuses on creative strategy over business strategy. CD Projekt RED opposes the inclusion of digital-rights-management technology in video games and software. The company believes that DRM is ineffective in halting software piracy, based on data from sales of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. CD Projekt RED found that their initial release (which included DRM technology) was pirated over 4.5 million times; their DRM-free re-release was pirated far less, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released without DRM technology. The team, believing that free downloadable content should be an industry standard, published 15 free DLC releases for Wild Hunt as an example to others in the industry.

According to Adam Badowski, head of CD Projekt RED, maintaining its independence is a company priority. They avoided becoming a subsidiary of another company for financial and creative freedom and ownership of their projects. Electronic Arts was rumoured to be attempting to acquire CD Projekt. This was quickly denied by Iwiński, who said that maintaining the company's independence is something he "will be fighting for".
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Notice how they treat their RPGs, players, DLC, DRM and their independence, I have the feeling that they would rather go bankrupt than sell themselves to the highest bidder.
It's a pity that what should be the standard of gaming has to be considered "rebels".

Would Bethesda ever release a free DLC, or choose creative strategy over financial strategy? I doubt it.
 
People have said this before, but enjoy it while it lasts. CDPR is highly likely to fall victim to the same fate as the rest of these developers one of these days.
 
MercenarySnake said:
I agree @Ninja, it's a sad and vicious cycle. It will continue and I doubt there's anything anybody can do about it.
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That is one of the reasons why I do hope some kind of game crash will occur. Customers getting sick of games that increasingly feel the same and seem to be more marketing design than actual content that reimburses the money they have put into the purchase.
The whole marketing strategy by the big publishers now seems to make it as superficially appealing now, graphics, some big voice actors, grandiose intro and cutscenes, lots and lots of random stuff, some quick gratification stuff to get players initially hooked, but not offer to much content so that it takes time for gamers to get bored and purchase a new game or expansion.

Such products will always be made and they just as much happened years ago, but now its these type of products over saturating the market. And it works as long as their target demographics have extra money to spend.
But as I mentioned before, how long will that continue? The economy is not as stable as it used to be, jobs are not longer certain (especially when corporate heads want to make as much profit as possible with as little costs necessary), the gap between rich and poor is increasing as the middle class diminishes, debt is basically killing people's purchasing ability.
Appeal to new markets? The only markets I can think of are countries in which people barely make an income, the countries a lot of first world countries exported manufacturing to because it is cheaper.
And I really don't think they are going to prioritize buying games over food and other essentials. If they want entertainment they usually pirate it as they often don't have the extra money to buy a DVD or downloadable file.

China is becoming a market now for Hollywood and the gaming industry, but how much import of these is the Chinese government willing to allow (they are protecting their own markets quite fiercely), especially when they consider some material subversive. (hence why some censorship is already happening)
And not every Chinese is enjoying the benefit from the country's rising economy which also has been taking a beating due to the oil prices and interest rates.
 
I doubt a game crash will ever happen, gamers are an unlimited source of money for game companies, and they can release the same game over and over with better graphics and more skins and new maps and gamers will always buy it. Because by the time one generation of gamers gets tired of that same game over and over, they move to a different type of game, go the route of "indie scene" or just stop playing games. By that time a new generation of gamers appears (the kids that grew up enough to play "actual games" on PC or console) and the cycle starts.

New gamers are like solar energy, they are virtually unlimited, there might be a decrease of it during the "night time" but the next day always come, over and over and over...
 
Isn't the state of the games industry just a symptom of the problem that lies within the entire entertainment industry? Prioritising business over creativity has been a thing with both movies and games for a while now. In a way, music suffers from this too. If something's going to change the video game industry, it probably has to be a crash for the entire entertainment industry, not just a game crash.

Hell, maybe even an economic crash for a whole continent. As far as I know, most times continental economic crashes happened in the past, it results in a big change in the entertainment industry and sets the standard for the entire next generation. But I guess if that happens, the quality of video games are going to be the least of my worries.

Besides, how long-term are we talking with this cycle? Not very likely that this kind of approach to games can go on for several more decades. Maybe until the end of the 2010s, but I doubt we'll see $60 incomplete-on-launch EA games with pre-order deals and repetitive mass-marketed content all the way into the future.

Finally, there's also the rarest possibility - the masses' standards go up. We see games like Mad Max and think, repetitive open-world generic stuff with occasional fun action, but the fact is that movie tie-ins used to be a lot worse before. If the majority's quality standards for games goes far and beyond expectations then maybe publishers will have to start "mass marketing" actual good games.

Also, CD Projekt runs Good Old Games. If they go the way of EA what do you wager will happen to GOG?
 
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ZigzagPX4 said:
Isn't the state of the games industry just a symptom of the problem that lies within the entire entertainment industry? Prioritising business over creativity has been a thing with both movies and games for a while now. In a way, music suffers from this too. If something's going to change the video game industry, it probably has to be a crash for the entire entertainment industry, not just a game crash.
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That isn't the problem. It is more like people acting like they could inflate the budget, keep spending on advertisement, and widen the consumer base indefinitely. What they are doing might not be wise even in a business perspective considering these eventually loses effectiveness.
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
They're not sticking with the classic formula of having only three to four decent expansions each filled with content, after all. They're heading right back to Oblivion and the current industry standard and going with selling eight to ten tiny DLC packs.

This is basically Bethesda unlearning everything they've learned in supporting their fan community and deciding that the EA route is the best one because, hey ho, it makes more money.

Even being crap at making Fallout, Bethesda have remained one of the better game companies in the industry, and it looks like they've decided that going downhill would be the best past. Dammit, Bethesda Softworks. RIP, yet another video game company succumbing to the siren song of greed.
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I understand the sentiment of your concerns, but it is always hard for me to use Oblivion as a comparative example, as it was the game that brought us Shivering Isles - an expansion that has not been rivaled within Bethesda since the Dragonborn DLC, which was still not quite there, in relative terms of quality/quantity.

But on the other hand, there were all of those damn player home add-ons, and of course the horse armour add-on, which they charged an extortionate amount for. :|

I really do hope that Bethesda does not return to that model of piddly content additions - at least, when they are charging for them. But, I s'pose I will not be surprised if a pseudo-polished turd is what we will be handed.
 
It looks... okay.

I mean besides the fact this is just essentially a paid mod.
Eh... It kind of reminds me of what Bioware do, which isn't a very bad thing...

My reaction is just kind of meh.
While I'll probably enjoy it more than others on here, it's a shame it's connected to a game like F4.
 
I don't think it's aiming to be a narrative heavy DLC that's going to focus on "exploring the ethics of a post-nuclear world," like the FNV DLCs did, so holding it to a different standard is reasonable to me. I guess it's like GRA, but with a story and quests.
 
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